Florida School Robo Calls 73,000 Sleeping Parents At 4 AM

The Broward County School District’s automated calling system decided to ring up over 73,000 parents at around four o’clock in the morning.

The message being sent out to parents informed them of an upcoming re-engagement event centered around dropouts. According to The Sun-Sentinel, the robo calls were placed between 10 pm and 4 am.

Since a lot of people are asleep at that hour, quite a few individuals weren’t too happy with the glitch. One Fort Lauderdale parent said that she was “dead asleep” when her phone rang early in the morning. She said that being startled in such a manner was enough to make your “heart stop.”

Wendy Bossory received her robo call at around 11 pm. She said:

“At first I was worried to have the phone ring that late. When I heard the recording I was in disbelief the county would issue generic phone calls so late!”

According to CBS Local Miami, the automatic calls startled wife and mother of two Barrie Shanahan. Her phone rang at around 4:30 am. Since her husband works overnight, she immediately assumed the worst.

She explained:

“The first thing I thought was, I got really scared. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, something’s wrong with him,’ and I picked up the phone, and I got the recording.”

A spokesperson for Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said the timing of the robo calls were “less than ideal.” Although reports initially indicated that 100,000 homes had been called during the glitch, the number was soon lowered to 73,000 since there were duplicate numbers on the list.

Although the school district issued apologies on social media, officials ultimately blamed Utah-based ParentLink for the problem. The company has since issued its own series of apologies for waking up parents so early in the morning.

Have you ever been awakened by a robo call in the middle of the night?